An example of a temperature detection circuit is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-241252. The temperature detection circuit supplies constant current to two strings of series-connected diodes. One string includes N+M diodes and the other string includes N diodes. The temperature detection circuit compares voltages across the two strings by a comparator to detect a predetermined temperature.
However, in this temperature detection circuit, the input of the comparator includes an offset voltage. Consequently, the temperature detected by the comparator includes the offset voltage as an error, and the degree of precision of the temperature detected may not be improved beyond the accuracy of the comparator.